Sixty-eight point five. That’s the average number of hours Councilman Wallace Stoker has put in over the last few weeks, and yet the one Friday he plans on ditching work a little early, this has to happen. His nose twitches at the smell of dusty blinds as he peeks through his office window at the mob congregated around the entrance of the staff parking lot. There must be a hundred of them out there, toting barely legible protest signs with grotesque drawings of dik-diks that look like the failed experiments of some ZenGen mad scientist: razor-sharp teeth, red laser eyes, and claws instead of hooves. It was a far cry from reality, but there seemed to be something almost inhumane about rallying against cute little doe-eyed antelope, no bigger than the family dog.
Stoker doesn’t understand how this huge dik-dik problem landed in his lap. He oversees the Department for Economic Affairs, Environment, and Tourism, not animal control. And yet here they are, expecting him to work some sort of miracle, to figure out a way to “disappear” an estimated 340,000 dik-diks roaming the urban areas of the Eastern Cape—areas already brimming with more immigrants, tourists, and bots than Stoker knows what to do with. Dik-dik droppings dot downtown walkways, like perverse little brown gumdrops paving the way to a gingerbread house Stoker has no stomach for imagining. Incidents of the animals’ aggressive behavior are on the rise now that people are more diligent about keeping food waste out of the dik-diks’ reach. And damn it all if an evening doesn’t pass without some SABC newscaster reporting from the grisly scene of a ten-car pileup caused by a lone dik-dik stupid enough to forage through discarded fast-food containers in the middle of a four-lane highway. It’s a mess, Stoker will admit.
But it’s not his mess.
Stoker eyes the mob and their proximity to his little Renault Wind, the late-afternoon sun glinting off its freshly waxed hood. Fifteen impossible meters stretch between the building and his car, but he can do it. Hell, he has to do it, and soon if he’s going to make it down to Port Elizabeth in time.
A familiar knock comes at the door. Stoker turns quickly and gets a face full of ficus leaves, nearly knocking over the whole plant. He catches it by its braided trunk, then eases the tree back to its position in front of the window, careful not to make a sound.
“Sir?” comes Gregory Mbende’s voice from the other side of the door.
Stoker doesn’t respond. Last thing he needs right now is to deal with Gregory’s blathering. Not that Stoker has anything against him. Gregory is a stand-up kind of guy, the most senior of his aides. Stoker’s seen all three of Gregory’s children go through university and is as proud of them as their father is. Sharp as tacks, all of those Mbende kids, though they must have gotten it from their mother. But what Gregory Mbende lacks in intellect, he makes up for in enthusiasm and passion for his job, which normally, Stoker doesn’t think is such a bad thing. But today, right now, Stoker has a date with destiny, and Gregory will only get in his way.
“Hello?” Gregory says again with a softer knock.
Precious seconds tick by. Stoker tiptoes over to his desk and shuts down his government-issued alpha bot. Its clunky operation system grinds to a halt.
Processing . . .
Processing . . .
Downloading 347 patches . . .
Stoker growls. Ooh, this piece of unreliable junk. Its scheduling app has become so glitchy lately, he’s resorted to leaving himself notes in odd places just so he doesn’t forget about important meetings.
Installing patches . . .
Finally, the alpha bot’s holoscreen flickers off, and the virtual keyboard winks out of existence. Stoker cradles the alpha bot under his arm like a football. He can’t afford for it to wander off and blow his cover.
He waits another three minutes until he’s sure Gregory has gone, then slips out into the dimly lit hallway. Stoker holds his breath as he slinks past Gregory’s ajar office door, then presses himself against the wall as he comes to an intersection. Peeking down the hall, he sees Callie Wilson with the Department of Agriculture chatting with an aide. Stoker swears she’s stalking him . . . always showing up to his meetings uninvited, lurking in the halls near his office even though she works two floors above, conveniently catching him as he comes out of the men’s room on more than one occasion.
And don’t think he hasn’t noticed her staring at his crotch when she thinks he isn’t looking.
Her eyes dart up from her conversation, like a lioness sensing the presence of a lame gazelle. Stoker jerks back and hopes she hasn’t seen him.
“Councilman Stoker!” she calls.
Stoker cringes. He doesn’t have time for this. He grits his teeth and dashes down the hallway, past her.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Got a meeting to get to!” An absurd thing for a gazelle to say to a lioness, and it wouldn’t have worked any better out in the savanna.
“Wait, sir!” she says, heels clacking like claws on the limestone floor.
Stoker zips, zags, cuts corners, and treads lightly. The clack of her heels echoes, farther and farther away. Stoker pauses to catch his breath, straightens his tie. That was close. He sighs and turns . . . running smack into Gregory Mbende’s chest.
“There you are, sir,” Gregory says, his portfolio clutched beneath an arm, and Stoker knows all too well what that means. “Things are getting a little hectic out in the parking lot.”
“I’ve noticed. And while I appreciate your concern, this dik-dik problem isn’t ours to solve,” Stoker says firmly, in a preemptive attempt to avoid an impromptu presentation of Gregory’s latest featherbrained idea. First there was the idea to introduce natural predators into urban areas. Stoker imagines how a pride of lions stalking the tree-lined streets of Grahamstown would go over during art festival season, roaring at tourists just trying to score good seats to the ballet. Gregory’s most recent plan, at the heart, actually had some merit: marketing subsidized dik-dik meat to township communities as an alternate source of protein. Eat a dik-dik! the marketing posters had read in bright blue-and-orange block lettering, with a picture of the cutest, saddest-looking dik-dik staring back at you. But Stoker’s put so much time and effort into fighting the illegal bushmeat trade, he’s afraid sending a message like that would reendanger a whole slew of less annoying wildlife.
“Well, I’ve got a new idea to run past you,” Gregory says, unzipping his portfolio.
“Can’t right now.” Stoker ducks into the rear, rarely used stairwell. Then he’s on the first floor, nearly to the exit to the parking lot, but Gregory isn’t so easy to lose.
“Sir, the dik-diks’ breeding season is only a few months away. If we’re going to act on this, we need to do it quickly. Days are precious.”